Groups launch anti-McConnell ads

A pair of Democratic groups have dropped about a quarter-million dollars into the Kentucky Senate race, debuting what they promise will be a protracted TV ad campaign against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Senate Majority PAC and Patriot Majority USA – the leadership-approved Democratic outside spenders in the fight for control of the Senate – announced the ad campaign Thursday morning. A Republican media-tracking source said the initial buy totaled just under $270,000 in cable and broadcast television.

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That buy is concentrated in the populous Louisville market, where about $159,000 in ads will run. The negative commercials will also run in the Lexington and Paducah markets.

The ads accuse McConnell of having become a creature of Washington, attacking him for voting in favor of bank bailouts and repeatedly showing a clip of the senator saying: “I’ve lived on a government salary for 30 years.”

Democrats have consistently called McConnell the most vulnerable Republican incumbent on the ballot in 2014, but have not yet recruited a challenger for the race. The well-funded outside ads look like an effort to keep McConnell’s polling numbers weak even in the absence of an engaged opponent.

Senate Majority PAC co-chair Rebecca Lambe said in a statement: “Between now and Election Day, we are going to make sure that every voter knows that after 30 years in Washington, Mitch McConnell is part of the problem and doesn’t stand with Kentuckians.”

The McConnell campaign shot back that the attacks on the senator are another “desperate” Democratic attempt to draw blood from an opponent of President Barack Obama.

“From office buggings, to racist tweets about Mitch’s wife, to the constant stream of negative ads, Barack Obama’s allies are desperate to attack Sen. McConnell at all costs,” campaign manager Jesse Benton said in an email, alluding to over-the-top rhetoric and tactics from the in-state liberal group Progress Kentucky. “The increasingly unhinged attacks by Washington liberals only reaffirm Kentuckians’ pride in Mitch McConnell for fighting to protect Kentucky from Obama’s bad ideas.”

Democratic recruitment efforts have focused in recent months on Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a 34-year-old official from a political family who the party views as a good contrast with the septuagenarian McConnell.

Grimes has not yet given a firm indication as to her intentions for 2014. Any Democrat would start out with a lot of financial ground to make up against McConnell, who reported having $7.4 million in his campaign account at the end of March.

That national Democrats are spending money against McConnell anyway reinforces both how sincerely they believe that he is beatable, and also the dearth of other offensive targets for the party in the midterm cycle.

Aside from Kentucky, the only other potential pickup for Democrats at this point is the open Senate seat in Georgia being vacated by Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss.